Analysis

June 4, 2025

Should startups follow Zuckerberg and axe low performers faster?

Cutting the bottom performing percentiles of staff to increase performance almost never works

Any tech CEO with serious growth goals will spend a lot of time thinking about how to up the performance of their team. In the name of performance, we’ve seen CEOs call their employees back to the office, mandate the use of AI tools and wax lyrical about how 60+ hour work weeks are the only way to make real progress. 

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Miriam Partington

Miriam Partington is a senior reporter at Sifted, based in Berlin. She covers the DACH region and the future of work, and writes Startup Life , a weekly newsletter on what it takes to build a startup. Follow her on X and LinkedIn

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